


airs above the ground

by sweetwatersong



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-02
Updated: 2015-02-02
Packaged: 2018-03-10 05:08:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3277901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwatersong/pseuds/sweetwatersong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With hand and touch, smile and twist, they move as if the world around them has ceased to exist, and the laws of gravity have their own rules in the canvas tent they dance under.</p>
            </blockquote>





	airs above the ground

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the absolutely beautiful [final scene](http://youtu.be/ZSr9z7jiiHQ) of Cirque du Soleil's _Worlds Away_ film.

“Ready?” Clint asks as he does every time despite all that lies between them. Natasha glances at him, amused and exasperated all at once, shaking her head even as she recognizes the distraction for what it is. Instead she reaches out, the tips of her fingers tangling with his, and exhales.

They slide onto the trapeze bar while the circus-goers are blinded, spotlights flashing across the bleachers to hide their entrance. When the audience finally looks up they find the aerialists pressed against each other, hip to thigh and head to shoulder as if they are on a bench in some city park, not poised more than fifty feet above the ground. Still shielded by the dim light in the Big Top, still hidden in the safety of the dome, Natasha rests her head on Clint’s shoulder and sees him grin down at her in this last moment of peace, this last respite from harm.

Then the spotlights sweep up, throwing shadows that number far too many and bear the sour tang of death onto the canvas walls behind them, and the last vestiges of their refuge are stripped away.

She begins to burn – and starts the dance.

With a single movement Natasha slides gracefully forwards, arcing in those few feet towards the dusty ring so far below. Every line of her body is curved, searching, reaching for the gasps that come just before the rope’s handle bites into her wrist and sends her swinging far from the bar she perched on not a breath before. Clint has fallen too, gliding past her with a grin for the concern of those watching, for those they could drain of will or life and work now to keep from harming. There is a joy in that choice, fierce and wild and theirs alone; there is a freedom there, with no more than a hint of strain when they pirouette and turn to sweep past each other.

A touch of hands, letting her springboard off of him into the open air and return to the arms that await her, to the hands Natasha knows will be there; there are furrows now between his brows, a set look to the corners of his mouth, before she catches his wrist and brings him circling along with her.

The impact of his knee against her thigh as they lock and spin, twisting ever more carefully through the bright lights around them; now the black lines have begun to tear from Clint’s shoulders, unnoticed by the human eyes below, familiar and welcome to her own gaze.

Slipping out of her own rope as Clint grasps her hand, braces himself for her support and her use; a tremor in his muscles, an agony in her own, while they dance with her only lifeline the strong fingers wrapped around her wrist.

They fit here in the sky, in the spotlights that burn away their sin-stained shadows and the darkness of their kind. Curving around each other, head to toe and hand to heart, Natasha finds again and again that she knows his body as well as if she were part of it, knows his movements as if they were her own. Tucking just so, reaching just there, allowing her world to narrow to the sorrows that cannot hold her any longer and the man who stands here with her, she dances in the air and smiles for the pain.

_I will rest here_ , she tells him when his arms are the only thing that hold her fifty feet above the ground. _I will find you_ , he tells her when he steadies her, catches her hand unseen behind his back.

_I will be what I choose_ , glowing and bright against the night that has no room in this tent or in them, and only when they burn with simple sweat and pride do they finish, molded into each other, hand to cheek and hip to thigh.

Only when they are clean do they let the applause begin.


End file.
